Doug Savant Once Had a “Melrose Place” Costar Refuse an Onscreen Kiss Because He Wasn't 'Comfortable' Playing a Gay Character

Doug Savant is reflecting on a behind-the-scenes conflict regarding his gay character on Melrose Place.

In a Nov. 20 episode of the Still The Place podcast, Savant and co-hosts Laura Leighton, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Daphne Zuniga discussed the challenges of having a gay character on a popular show in the ‘90s. Savant, 60, then shared a story about a time there was pushback from another actor.

"There was an actor I was working with who wasn't as comfortable that he was playing someone who was gay," he recalled. "I wanted, in an effort to show that [his character Matt Fielding] was behaving with this character in a way that was against his better judgment, I wanted him to steal a kiss at work. Like, look around, make sure no one was looking, but kiss this guy in the cheek — just a peck on the cheek."

"This other actor was so uncomfortable,” Savant continued. “He was like, 'That's not in the script, we're not doing that.' He was so uncomfortable with it. I sort of found that shocking."

Related: 'Melrose Place' Reunion! Daphne Zuniga, Laura Leighton, Doug Savant and Costars Snap Pic in N.Y.C.

Savant, who is married to Leighton, said the network wanted to keep his character “palatable,” which, at the time, meant minimizing his gay storyline and clarifying that he was straight in real life. (PEOPLE has reached out to Fox for comment.)

“In the defense of like the actor that I just said and anyone that had any objection to me playing the role to begin with, it was a very real thing,” he explained. “The business didn't cut into it and it was an issue for me going forward. And so much so that I had an executive who told me, ‘Yeah, we need to let the gay thing go.’”

“Then when it was time for this episode, [they said] that the most comfortable storyline the network could find that everybody could sign off on was this gay bashing,” Savant noted. “There were very limited storylines that the network would be comfortable with because the advertisers were only comfortable sort of touching on certain things — and one of them was the gay bashing and the other was a kid coming out to his parents or that sort of awkward conversation.”

When Thorne-Smith asked if Savant was allowed to “show any affection” with male interests on the show, he said generally, “No,” because it wasn’t what “the networks felt safe dealing with.”

"I think we surreptitiously held hands underneath the table," he explained, referring to a scene in season 2 between his character Matt and Jason Beghe’s Jeffrey Lindley, a closeted Navy Lieutenant.

"I think there might have been a shot of us actually holding hands, but that had to be away from public consumption because, by the way, he was in the military and that was our storyline, right? It was 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'” he added.

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Still the Place is available to stream wherever you get your podcasts, and Melrose Place is available to stream on Paramount+.

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